


Let Us Go Together and Hear the Maker's Will

by AuroraBorealia



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Cassandra and Varric friendship, Dragon Age Quest: In Hushed Whispers, Dragon Age: Inquisition Spoilers, Gen, POV Cassandra Pentaghast, The Chant of Light
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 23:38:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11218629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraBorealia/pseuds/AuroraBorealia
Summary: In Redcliffe Castle, stuck in a dark future, Cassandra faces the end with an unlikely ally at her side - an event that causes her to reflect on her attitudes towards a certain dwarf. Cassandra's in-party POV during "In Hushed Whispers".





	Let Us Go Together and Hear the Maker's Will

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, everyone! So, I love "In Hushed Whispers". In fact, before I had ever played Inquisition and was just learning about it secondhand, watching a walkthrough of this quest is what made me realize I had become hopelessly addicted to the franchise and was never turning back. 
> 
> Once I actually played it myself, I loved it even more. During my playthrough, I had both Cass and Varric in my party, but didn't quite think of the implications of those two sacrificing themselves together until I found this confession from the Dragon Age Confessions blog completely by accident: [https://dragonageconfessions.tumblr.com/post/159413243317/confession-ive-played-in-hushed-whispers]. I was immediately seized with a desire to write that and, although the story didn't turn out exactly as I imagined, it's pretty darn close.
> 
> Obviously, given the nature of "In Hushed Whispers", this fic contains occasionally bloody mentions of violence (mostly in the nature of describing events from the game) and features brief mentions of character death. I hope you enjoy the feels! Reviews will be met with squealing and eternal gratitude!

* * *

  **Let Us Go Together And Hear the Maker’s Will **

* * *

 

 

> _You have walked beside me_
> 
> _Down the paths where a thousand arrows sought my flesh._
> 
> _You have stood with me when all others_
> 
> _Have forsaken me._
> 
> \- Trials 1:5

 

She said it for the sake of filling the silence. She said it because its sound was more pleasant than the buzzing of the red lyrium. She said it for herself – or maybe for both of them. Cassandra said it for all those reasons, the entirety of Transfigurations 10:1. Indeed, the rest of the Chant too (she was fairly certain the walls of her cell rang with the whole Chant of Light for as often the words sprang to her lips) – but those particular verses were in her mouth so frequently, she wouldn’t have been surprised to find them tattooed on her tongue.

“ _The Light shall lead her safely through the paths of this world, and into the next. For she who trusts in the Maker, fire is her water. As the moth sees light and goes toward flame, she should see fire and go towards Light. The Veil holds no uncertainty for her, and she will know no fear of death, for the Maker shall be her beacon and her shield, her foundation and her sword_.”

“Don’t you ever get tired of saying that verse, Seeker?” Varric’s voice, strained from the poison of red lyrium, was echoic, somehow strangely magnified above the dripping in the dank chamber. Cassandra paused in her litany and looked up.

“If I was tired of saying it, I’d stop,” she said, smiling mirthlessly. “Do you tire of hearing it?”

“There isn’t a whole lot else to hear in this place,” he said and shrugged. He started to hum softly to himself while Cassandra continued to pray.

* * *

That was the last time their cells were adjacent. Cassandra remembered how Varric had laughed as the Venatori crammed them both in there six months prior. _How times have changed, eh, Seeker?_ Their captors responded with a swift and evidently painful blow to his gut, so he said no more about it.

Then one day, they came in and took Varric out of his cell, dragged him to Maker knew where for Maker knew what. She couldn’t decide if it was easier to imagine he was dead or not – on the one hand, thinking him dead kept her expectations in check. On the other, it was difficult to imagine she was completely alone now, slowly dying of this poison that radiated through her chest as if her bones were hollow… alone with these thoughts of regret and failure. Cullen was dead. Josephine was dead. Solas and Warden Blackwall and Iron Bull were dead. And the Herald of Andraste was dead. Sometimes, in the still moments, she would place her hands on her hips, feeling her rib cage, and as she flexed her fingers to count each sharp bone, every thrum seemed to sing the names of the dead in the rhythm.

She wasn’t sure about Leliana. She thought Leliana lived, but sometimes hoped she was wrong. It would be kinder if the Left Hand of the Divine was as gone as the rest of them. It felt strange to pray to the Maker that her friend was dead, but that’s what she found herself doing. She prayed for her own death too – how could she not when she felt it closing in all around her? She knew she would be at the Maker’s side soon and she found herself longing for it. _I wonder if Andraste really has red hair…?_

And thus she began Transfigurations 10:1 again and tried not to think of how deeply she had failed or to wonder if the Maker would forgive her for it.

* * *

Such a line of thinking filled the next months (was it months? It was becoming difficult to tell) and she was praying when the Herald found her. Sweet Maker, the Herald… the Herald she had long since come to think was dead.

“The end must truly be upon us if the dead return to life,” she had said, stunned.

But the Herald wasn’t dead, not really. Apparently, there was a way to end this, to ensure it had never happened in the first place. As long as she still had the strength to hold her sword and her shield, she would seek a way to free them all from the agony of this world the Elder One had washed in the blood of so many.

She was surprised to see Varric still alive – one might even say relieved, although that one was certainly not Cassandra herself. Seeing Leliana brought her less relief. The valiant spymaster’s beautiful face had morphed, each line and curve telling the tales of her torture. It made Cassandra sick, and she tried not to show that fact on her own face too acutely.

“What happened while we were away?” Asked the strange mage named Dorian.

“Stop talking,” snapped Leliana.

“I’m just asking for information.”

“No, you’re talking to fill silence. Nothing happened that you want to hear.”

Thus they made their way through the rest of Redcliffe Castle in an almost unbearable shroud of quiet and, when they weren’t fighting, again Cassandra prayed. And at last, after what felt like an eternity, they finally came to Alexius’s throne room.

He was apocalyptic when they found him. “The Elder One comes – for me, for you, for us all,” he declared grimly.

But whatever he would have done was quickly erased when Leliana grabbed the pale, skeletal creature that stood close at Alexius’s hand. His son – whose deathly appearance horrified and enraged Dorian.

“Hand over the amulet and we let him go,” said the Herald as Alexius gibbered in panic at the sight of Leliana’s knife against his son’s neck.

“Let him go, and I swear you’ll get what you want,” Alexius pleaded, a hand outstretched to Leliana as if begging for mercy. But Leliana’s lip merely curled.

“I want the world back,” she snarled and cut the boy’s throat in one fluid motion. Even as he fell limp in a torrent of blood, Cassandra couldn’t help but think this fate had been kinder than the one Alexius had given him.

* * *

Alexius’s anguish propelled him only for a short while before the fight went out of him and he all but let them dispatch him. But before Dorian and the Herald had much of an opportunity to use the amulet to their advantage, the ground shook and a shot of alarm ran through Cassandra’s tense body. The Elder One.

She glanced down at Varric and the look in his reddened eyes said he was thinking the same thing she was - that this was the end. She could almost hear him narrating it the way he might were it one of his books and the thought made her laugh inwardly. Funny to think how they had started – she and Varric – as prisoner and interrogator. She would now be walking towards the throne of the Maker with this infuriating dwarf at her side. _How times have changed, eh, Seeker?_

She had often heard it said that the Maker had a sense of humor; perhaps she would ask him about it when she stood before him very, very soon. She met Varric’s gaze and gave him a slight nod. _I’m with you._

And so out they walked, side by side to their deaths as the door swung closed behind them. Determination threaded through her steps as she walked out to meet her fate, the silence in the hall agonizing.

“Well, Seeker. Got a Chant verse for this?” Varric asked, managing a final smile.

She thought for a moment. “Yes. _Let us go together and hear the Maker’s will._ ”

“Hang on, isn’t that what Andraste’s husband said to her… right before he, you know, handed her over to be killed?” He asked.

She looked slightly surprised and perhaps a bit impressed that he knew such a thing. “Well… yes.”

He sighed. “Shit. Oh, well, it’s best not to get caught up in semantics at a time like this.” He grabbed his crossbow and hefted it experimentally. “Let’s go hear the Maker’s will, then…”

“…But not before we take as many of them with us as possible,” she finished for him, a smirk tugging at her lips.

He chuckled at her gallows humor and nodded. “Yeah. That.”

Tense seconds passed and then another rumble, heralding their time had come. From every corner, enemies streamed into the hall – Venatori, demons, swords and staves and claws beyond counting, stalking them, pouring in like water.

“ _When I have lost all else, when my eyes fail me and the taste of blood fills my mouth, then in the pounding of my heart I hear the glory of creation_ ,” she all but shouted over the snarling of the demons and the Tevene curses of the Venatori as they unsheathed their blades. She vaguely heard the distinctive sound of arrows springing from Bianca under Varric’s quick fingers.

* * *

It wasn’t a long battle. But then again, she suspected suicide runs usually weren’t. All that mattered now was that perhaps there would be less enemies for Leliana to fight, perhaps there was a chance the Herald would succeed.

She watched their enemies fall, bloodied, at the point of her blade or from the bite of Varric’s arrows – one, then two, then five. She lost count after that as they began to close in on all sides. She turned to face Varric, accepting the inevitable, and saw him smile. “This may surprise you, Seeker, but it’s been a pleasure to fight alongside of you,” he said.

It _was_ a surprise and she smiled back, genuinely. She wondered if maybe it was the Maker’s final gift to her that she felt some of the vitriol towards the dwarf finally loosen in her chest and fall away. “And you as well. Goodbye, Varric.”

“See you around, Seeker.” And with that he was surrounded and she could hear him fall.

For her part, she was driven back as they pushed towards the door. With one final yell, she swung at them, feeling her sword snap as it was caught by a demon, feeling her shield knocked out of her hand by a mighty blow. There was a bolt of pain in her torso, blood ran from somewhere, and her vision went dim.

 _Though all before me is shadow, yet shall the Maker be my guide,_ she said silently. That verse reminded her of Cullen – Cullen, who she would be seeing again very soon. She wondered if he had finally found peace in the light of the Maker… if Varric had… if she would. She looked forward to finding out, she thought, as she felt herself fall through the open door.

* * *

 

*  * *

 

If there was anything stranger than the Herald disappearing, it was the Herald reappearing moments later, all but shocking Alexius into surrender. It was bafflingly easy, Cassandra thought, and she couldn’t help but arch an eyebrow. The next thing she knew, it was over, they had allied with the mages, and they were getting ready to march back to Haven. She would have to ask about this later.

She turned to go when she felt a gentle tug on her arm and turned to see the Herald watching her with wide eyes. “You… you were dead. You and Varric, you sacrificed yourselves for me. For us. For all of us. You died together.”

Cassandra’s own eyes went wide, but she had no retort. As the Herald released her and all but staggered off, Cassandra was left to consider such a thing. Just _what_ had happened? She and Varric walking to death side by side? Such a thing seemed unlikely at best, maybe impossible. But as they all left Redcliffe, she found herself watching him from the corner of her eye. Maybe it wasn’t impossible. Maybe it wasn’t even unlikely. Perhaps, if the situation called for it, they could have each other’s backs, even unto the end.

Of all the times when the Herald’s statement could come swimming back into her mind, it was much later in their journey. The Herald was called the Inquisitor now and Haven was but a memory, buried underneath the snow. Cassandra had spent days simmering, haunting through Skyhold in a rage at the idea that Hawke – the very person she had so long sought – had been sitting up on the battlements, talking to the Inquisitor. Everyone gave her the space she needed, knowing her rage against Varric was near murderous, and thus she was completely alone when she slipped into The Herald’s Rest that night for a much needed drink and even more desperately needed quiet.

Or, at least, she thought she was alone. It took her several minutes to realize Varric was at the bar. A noise of disgust bubbled in her throat and she was ready to bolt down her drink and leave when something stopped her. Before she really knew what she was doing, she found herself rising from her corner table and crossing over to sit a few seats away from him. He startled as she sat down, but she just held up a hand to assure him she wasn’t going to hurt him. He looked apprehensive, but stayed.

For several minutes, they sat in silence, regarding each other from the corners of their eyes. She was remembering the Inquisitor’s report from Redcliffe – after that mission with Alexius and the mages which now seemed so very long ago – the notion that she and Varric had willingly gone off together to die in a desperate attempt to save the world. She supposed everything was a desperate attempt to save the world nowadays, and once again she was reminded that just maybe she would lay her life down for Varric – and he for her.

After a beat, she ordered a drink and pushed it in his direction. He smiled, chuckling slightly. She smiled back.

Yes, just maybe.


End file.
